Met My Guardian Angel! Here’s What Happened…

Father Pena. Good to see you again, Ken. Pleasure to have you. Here's a question. Yes. Have you met an angel? Besides every morning when I look in the mirror. You set me up. I totally did. Yeah, actually. Yes, I've met, consciously, being aware of meeting an angel, my guardian angel, twice in my life. Really? Yeah. Can I tell you the story? Yeah, what happened? When I was a seminarian in philosophy, I got a job, thank you, Father Poma, rest in peace, working with a roofing company. Worst job on the planet is doing roofing. Cold tar and hot tar, worse. And he had great pity on me. He said, well, I did one day of that. And then the owner said, oh, he's a seminarian. I don't want his hands getting all tarred up in that. So I ended up being a carpenter's assistant. And it was at St. Andrew's College in Saskatoon. We redid all the windows. But they came to redo the roof one day. And so an 18-year-old kid, and I felt so much older because I was 20, he and I were given the job of schlepping all the stuff for the pulley system to get the cans of tar up to the top of the college. How high? Oh, this is three stories. OK. It was a bit of a schlep. Three, one, two, three, yeah. And so we put it together up at the top. And then when I got down to the bottom, because he was at the top, I had the pulley all set up with the ropes and everything. And these were big, heavy cans of tar. I remember hollering up and saying, have you put the balance weights on the base of the pulley, right? Because I couldn't remember if there were weights to counteract the pulley. And he said, yes, yes, go ahead. So I pulled. And then I pulled. And suddenly, I felt something grab me by the neck and pull me over backwards. And I went flying. I went backwards. Now, what's bizarre about that was I was pulling myself forward. Yes. I should have fallen forward, but I was pulled backwards. And then lying there, kind of stunned on the ground, I looked up just as the whole pulley contraption came crashing down right where I was. That's the first. When you're lying there, what were you thinking? I'm going to kill him. The kid up top. Yeah. But it was upon reflection that I really felt that pull. I remember talking to my mom about it. And she said, well, that's your guardian. That's your guardian angel. You know, I grew up with the guardian angel prayer, but my guardian angel was not acknowledged enough in my life. Not enough. And what my guardian angel has done for me is just remarkable. You know, the guardian angels are given to us as just this utter gift of God that comes from them. Because God asked them at the moment of their being called into existence, will you be Stephen's? Will you be Ken's guardian angel? That was the only question, right? And they said, yes. And this is not some sort of mythology from the past that we picked up. Jesus, the word of God has told us, you know, be careful of what you say about these little ones. And that means also us. He refers to us as little ones, for their angels are always in the presence of God, interceding for them and with us. Second time. And as I say this, I can think of a third time, too. The second time, despite my not paying enough attention to the guardian angels, because I was a seminarian in the early 80s. And they were different times, shall we say. And a lot of the traditional devotional life and the traditional prayers that I had as a child were puput. Okay, we were much more with it, right? We moved beyond all of that stuff. My second year in theology was a tough year, and I was really, really convinced that I was not being called to be a priest. Just a number of things in my life. And I went with a friend to Montreal, and it was a crappy time in Montreal. Montreal can be beautiful. It can also be horrible, slushy and cold and damp. And I was staying in the Grand Seminaire de Montreal in these empty corridors, and I was depressed, really depressed, wandering around. And I remember I was supposed to meet someone for lunch, but it was downtown, so I went to Notre Dame Reine du Monde, the Queen of the World place. So I walked in the front of the church. And immediately, as you often find in churches, like if you go to the Co-Cathedral, you'll find lots of, I call them the Anoimia way, the little ones of Jesus, the little ones of God. A little crazy. You know? So the crazy ones are both at the back of the church and in the sanctuary, right? So all of a sudden, there was one of these ladies, bam, right on top of me. Oh, you, I need you to come and pray with me. Right away, she said, come and pray with me, come and pray with me. I had just never been in this church before. She took me over to the Blessed Sacrament Chapel, and she said, okay, we have to pray. We have to pray for a young man I know who's in seminary and who's thinking of leaving. So let's pray the Hail, let's pray, you pray with me. And we started saying the Rosary. And as I prayed the Decade, such peace came over me. And with every prayer, I just was lost in, okay, Lord, here you are with me. And I said to myself, at the end of the Decade, I want to tell this woman that we've been praying for me. And I turned to her, and she was gone. Couldn't find her anywhere in the church. Now, yes. The hyper-rational logical person wants to look for all kinds of explanations. I don't know why, why we always want to cut out these moments of grace. We don't want to be credulous. We want to believe. And the word believe comes from the word to love. Liebe is the core word of that. We want to live in a relationship with God that we see His love kind of everywhere, right? If somebody's listening to this, and their faith has been ignited, and they want to develop a further devotion or relationship with their guardian angel, practically, what would you say to that? First thing in the morning, angel of God, my guardian dear to whom God's love commits me here, ever this day be at my side to light, to guard, to rule, and guide. Say hi. And if you can't remember to do that, because you don't, have an image of your guardian angel somewhere. Or even an angel of St. Michael. Have that. They're given to us as that sort of spark. Just do it. And then, at the end of the day, angel of God, my guardian dear to whom God's love commits me here, ever this night be at my side to light, to guard, to rule, and guide. You know, I was reinforcing this by staying with the Felician sisters in Rome. I had gone with Archbishop Murray when he was receiving his pallium from Pope Francis. The pallium is the sign of authority of an archbishop. And so all the new archbishops from around the world had gathered in Rome. And I had gone along, and we were staying with the Felician sisters, because the superior general had worked with Bishop Murray when he was bishop in the north of Canada. And she is now a wonderful Polish woman. Anyway, when we arrived, they brought us immediately into the chapel and thanked God for bringing us here, and the guardian angel. And when we left, we went into the chapel, and they sang, O guardian angel mine, be ever at my side, morning, noon, time, night time, day time, always there by my side. Now, these were remarkable women. You know, they're doctorates and very accomplished, singing that childlike song. Yes. You see, every person has a guardian angel. Our baptism sets the angel free to combat what early Christians thought was that the evil one had also sicced on us, a malevolent spirit that wants to, the old accuser, a voice of Satan, the accuser, saying, you're not loved, you're not lovely, you're unloving, always going at us. You know, the old days where they had the angel and the demon on either side as a cartoon. Well, that didn't just come out of nowhere. That is actually, there are early church fathers who write about this reality. But the hands of the angel, our guardian angel, are tied until our baptism, because Christ Jesus is the one who unleashed, who allows us to live in as children of God, not just creatures of God, created in the image and likeness of God, but recreated to be called children of God, recreated to be Christ-formed. And Christ-formed means that we understand the great plot, the conspiracy that God has about each one of us, the conspiracy to save us and to love us. He's always there. And the angel, and angelos means messenger, the angel is always there, whispering and protecting us. You asked me once before, you know, tell me the story of your vocation. And my response was, I don't know, God will tell me that when I get to the end. And the angel will have a lot to do with that. I know. I was thinking of, you know, these other moments of just the angel just whispering, like the other day. Who knows? Mine's not really a barbecue family. You know, we don't do that. We're Italians, we have dinners. But my mother had mentioned, I was asking her something about what she liked about in her life. And she said, I love it when my family's together to eat. So the next day I was over visiting her, and it was really hot out. And I said, out of nowhere, apropos of nothing, oh, let's have a barbecue tomorrow. And I texted everybody and said, OK, let's have a barbecue. And everyone said, oh, I can't do it. I've got this. They all had excuses, but they all canceled the excuses, and they all showed up. And we were all together. And that was the last time that my niece was with us all. And we hadn't seen her, some of us, for quite a while. That was the guardian angel. That was God's providence. Sometimes, like, why bother God? He's got Lebanon to worry about right now. And you've got a test that you've got to give. Well, that's good to, you know, God's all in on that. Why not ask your guardian angel to be with you? You know, the other thing, too, is every nation has its own angel. Every nation, every nation on earth will adore you. Every nation is given an angel. When you don't attend to that angel, then you miss the conspiracy of God to love you. What about the thought that some people have two angels? What's your thoughts on that? And who might they be? Two angels? I've just heard people say maybe a priest might have a second angel or a bishop. Have you ever heard of that? And what's your thoughts on that? No, I haven't heard of that. Oh, it wouldn't surprise me. You know, because we do have to be careful about angels, because there has been this angel fixation of the New Age. And a lot of times what happens in New Age is that it takes old truths and then just sort of makes it all about them, always for a price, right? There's always a book to buy or a workshop to go through. And I've always been very leery of that because angels are messengers of God, okay? They lead us to God. They don't want us to be paying a special attention to them. But when we do, then they are able more and more to fill us and let us see the presence of God. Yes, I would imagine as a bishop or as a priest, because, you know, it's one of the things that we don't realize, that there's also a level of authority in different kinds of angels. There are hierarchies of angels. We know that, the nine ranks of angels. And that's the church's understanding. Do we know that? Do we know the great conspiracy, the plethora of how God has structured the unseen world, because what is unseen is vital, all to his glory, you know? I think that we really should pay attention to that, not by fixating on them, in a way that somehow if I have a special relationship with my angel, then I get power and things will happen for me. That's always an underlying. That's magic. Yeah, I find the stories with Padre Pio kind of interesting, because the claim was that he could always see his guardian angel from a young boy with his eyes wide open. And he was surprised that other young boys couldn't see theirs, he could see them. That was a unique grace. Yes, a very unique grace. But the danger of the angel obsession is that that angel is there to do my will, my backing, whereas we exist to do the divine will. Precisely. You know, in Tolkien's world, in the Lord of the Rings world, I'm a Tolkien geek, the angels play a very important role, because Saruman and Sauron and Gandalf and Radagast, they… Not Radagast. Oh, my brain, I'm mixing up C.S. Lewis. Is it? Radagast. Okay. They're all angels in the hierarchy. They're angels that have come and taken on forms for a reason. And Sauron can take the form of a beautiful… Did. Took the form of a beautiful, seductive person and was able to seduce them. That's how the rings all got made. So, the church has always been very careful. Is this an angel that you're seeing? Or is this something seductive and a trick of the evil one? But they were, in my life, I mean, I'm sorry, those… There's been another time, can I tell you another angel story? I was in France studying French, of course, that's what one does, but I was spending more time drinking wine, I think, than I was otherwise. And it was in the valley of the Loire, in Angers, and I was a young priest, and there was a young German seminarian. We were studying at the same time. Anyway, it was the feast of Saint René Goupilly. Saint René Goupilly is one of the Canadian martyrs. He's the layman there of the Canadian martyrs. And he came from Angers in France. And so, I was in… Because I was in Angers, there was a big celebration at the cathedral. I took myself out there, and I said to the seminarian, let's go and do this. And so, when the bishop found out I was from Canada, oh, sit here next to me, you know, blah, blah, blah. And he began by saying, We have with us this evening a flower of the Canadian church, nourished by the blood of our saint. So, if you wonder who I am, Anyway, we had a great celebration. Afterwards, we wanted to go for a drink. France, you can do that. It's kind of cool. We went out down the walking mall, and there was a nice bar that had some tables outside. I said, let's sit down here, and we sat down. And we were about to order the drinks. The woman came over to ask us what we want. And I said, you know, something just sort of… I said, I feel kind of cold. Let's go and sit inside somewhere. And she said, well, all the tables are full. But then she said, you can go out to the other place. So, I walked across the street. We went to this other bar, and we ordered a beer. And just as we were about to drink it, an amazing ruckus happened outside. What's going on? We looked outside. The balcony above our table had collapsed and destroyed the table. Where you would have been. Where we would have been. No one was sitting there in that little time. Wow. But some people were hurt by some of the other debris. But I would have been there. I know these all sound, ah, yeah, yeah. Stories always grow in the telling, right? And there's an old Italian story. If it's not true, it should be. But I am not going to blaspheme against my angels by telling stories and exaggerating something that is not there.